Book Review - Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Why did I read this book?
I had listened to Sharp Objects on audio and really enjoyed it (although it was much darker that I expected).  Everyone had been talking about Gone Girl and I was curious.  I found out my local library would lend out books for 7 days to my kindle.  It's a pretty tough task for me to read a book in 7 days and the waiting list for this book was pretty long. My first attempt I got about one third of the way though before my lending period expired, I then had to wait three weeks on the waiting list again.  When I got it again I made sure to spend all my free time finishing it

First Lines:
"When I think of my wife, I always think of her head." (Flynn 3)

What is it about?
The story begins with Nick realizing his wife, Amy, is missing.  A neighbor tips him off to the fact that the door has been left open for quite a while and he heads home from work to investigate.  Coming home to what appears to be a crime scene the police are called in to this strange disappearance.  The more and more we learn about Nick and Amy the weirder things get and more questions arise.

Why you should read it!
I will try really hard to not include any spoilers here but if you haven't read this book and don't want it ruined for you it might be a good idea to stop reading now.  I really liked how uncertain things were the whole time in this book.  The twists and turns kept coming but there weren't too many and they weren't too ridiculous that I wanted to stop reading.  For the whole first half of the book I just knew there had to be more to the story and I real liked finally hearing both sides.  Although as soon as I started feeling like I was identifying with one character they would do something to make me angry and I would feel sorry for their spouse.  I know there has been a lot of talk about the ending and I hated it.  I have no clue what I wanted but the ending left me feeling blah.  With that being said I still loved the book, which I guess says a lot about the majority of the book and the writing since I despised the ending (seriously I was thinking that my kindle version got cut off a few chapters early).  Luckily, this book wasn't as dark as Sharp Objects but there were still some very twisted parts, but again it wasn't overkill and I think almost anyone would enjoy this book!

Reviews from around the blogosphere:

S. Krishna's Books
Book Jingle Blog
Book Club Classics

Did you read this book and review it on your blog? Let me know in the comments and I'll add your link!

Book Review - Speak to Our Desires by Brenda Clough

How did I come into possession of this book?
I received this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.  I didn’t realize it was an e-book and I don’t have an e-reader so I read it on my phone.  This is why it took me forever to read, so now I try and avoid e-book reviews if possible, at least until someone buys me an e-reader…

What is it about?
The story centers on a detective who is presented with a missing person’s case by a very beautiful woman.  He soon finds out the missing person is this woman’s mother and they both have a special ability to read minds and thoughts of others and sometimes influence those thoughts.  The story continues in the search for her mother as well as giving the reader an in depth background of her life leading up until now.

  
What did I think?

I enjoyed this book.  It has the aspect of reality with the slightest touch of fantasy/sci-fi which is a genre I enjoy.  It was a bit confusing at first since you didn’t know when the story was jumping around different times.  You would be reading in current time and suddenly go back 10 years ago in the next chapter with no warning or reasoning to why you are suddenly learning about the past.  A lot of times this bothered me since it never really seemed to tie anything up.  I guess by the end if just gave you a full picture of her life, but up until then I was a little frustrated.  This was the only downside, the writing was great and I really felt for both main characters.  To my surprise I also liked the ending and the way everything was wrapped up.

Who would I recommend it to?
If I had a physical copy of this book I think it would’ve been a fairly quick read.  It’s a bit of a typical detective story with a twist.  So especially if you like detective stories I would recommend this book but I would also recommend it to someone who just wants to read something new (since I can’t quite put it in a genre of its own!).